Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1887-07-07
CITY STREET MEMBERS.
Their Peculiar Cries to Attract Alteration
to Their Wares.

SiO"h W STcdI proportions rive
thousand peddlers are daily patrolling
the thoroughfares selling all kinds of
wares and doing all kinds of work
They pay a dollar year to the city
for the privilege of selling goods on
the street and harassing late sleepers
and nervous people with their cries.
In the morning are those of the news
boys In Western cities, where the
feature of bulletin boards has not been
,, developed, the newsboys call out the
names of their papers and announce
their most startling piece of news.
A few moments before the paper comes
out the city editor sends down to the
publication office a cry for the news
boys. The man in charge of the base
ment room. where a hundred or two
newsboys are waiting. then calls them
up and gives them the cry. One day
the shout in one of the Western news
paper offices was: ''All about the MUIR
der of SMITH" Peter Smith had been
a very wealthy, aristocratic man. The
newsboys were coached, and shouted
the call several times in vociferous con-
cert while waiting for their papers.
Some of them, as is usually the case,
did not learn the call correctly, and
when they began calling their papers
on the streets the friends of Mr.. Smith
were Mortified to hear them shout:
'.All about the murderer, Peter Smith"
The New York newsboy merely calls
the names of his papers. He gives the
names a peculiar infection, and if the
edition is an extra he shouts "Hextra,
just outr' cry sure to sell papers. for
the public knows that something extra
ordinary must have happened to war
rant an extra.
Before the newsboy selling morning
papers has subsidized, the people in flats
and in boarding-houses, who are trying
to take their final morning nap, are
aroused by peculiar whoops, that sound
like "Y-I-p! Y-o-h-oOI' 1t is
the call of the milkman with their
peculiarly-fashioned red wagons. In
Washington the milkman announce
their coming by ringing great gongs
attached to the dashboards of their
wagons, and in Western cities they
milkman is allowed to ring bell. His
cry is peculiar and no other vendor at
tempts to initiate it.
When the milkmen have gone, a
man comes along the street yelling
what sounds like ''Glass pudding!'
He happens along at the hour when the
chamberDaids are cleaning the
windows, and his call means ''Glass
put inr' Following him are men,
one on each side of the street-for
they, like many branches of street.
traffickers, usually travel in pairs
yelling in peculiar nasal tones: Rag
-son-bot-tells They are the rag
and bottle-buyers.
At eight o'clock in the morning a
great army of fruit and vegetable
vendors begin to make the streets any
thing but nselodious. One shouts:
'-Pot-eight, pOt-eight-oOsr' Another
yells: ''Sparrow-gresst thirteen cents
a punchi' The former is the vender of
potatoes, and the latter of asparagus
About eleven O'Clock men drive
along the streets in the tenement dis
triets screaming +-GO-wayr' Get near
enough to see the contents of their
wagons and You will find that they are
selling coal. The majority of the
licensed wagons IN New York are those
from which coal and ice are sold. The
yell Red dishesr' blends with the coal
mans call. Five cents a bunch for FIVE
radishes is the ruling price. The
vicinity of the great factories is good
field for the radish-vender about noon,
for the workman esteems the radish
with his luncheon
At the crowded street corners fire.
quented by shoppers one hears the call
"Lie-likes! Just cut! Five-cents-a-
Lilacs are very popular for
table Ornamentation, and the vendors
make good livings by their sale.
A man with a musical voice perambu-
lates the streets on the lower West
Side singing: ''Any penknives or scis-
sors or carvers to gr-i-nd?" Another
dealer, whose voice sounds like a chant
at church service, goes through the
streets on the East Side
sin ging: Tin washer to me-hend, |
tin pai-hels, boi-lhers and |
pa-hans"
The poet of the craft is a clam-ven-
der, who sings out:
'Oh clans Oh clans! Fresh CLAIMS to-dayi
They've lately arrived from Rockaway!
They're good for to eat they're good for TO fry, |
They're good for to make a clam pot-pie."
The broom-peddlers have a peculiar
cry which sounds like ''A-whoop! |
a-whoor' and no one would understand
that the shout. "Ap-hum, tence a
pa-helr' means "Apples, ten
cents a water pail. IN. Y. Cor. DenUer